Material culture and technology

While there is high technology (in many cases much higher than real-world, or even much science fiction) and magic available, there is not an equivalent to modern-day consumer culture of technology. The following guidelines are to give the players an idea of what kinds of technology and magical items are available. Eventually, I will be adding new equipment options to this section.

Upper Levels and Types of Technology Available

• Computer and information technology is uncommon and not favored. You won't see much in the way of monitors or displays, databases of any kinds, keyboards, etc. There are people specially trained to be savants in terms of calculation and feats of memory. Many powerful people have an assistant who can recall the contents of an entire library in impressive detail, and handle massive amounts of mathematical calculations in seconds.
• Genetic Engineering and vat-grown life forms exist.
• Power supplies of effectively infinite duration are possible, although they do have a maximum sustained output.
• Faster than light travel and teleportation exist, but cannot reliably be replicated at the current time.
• The Lizardmen had psionic technology with telepathic interfaces, although it has never been (and may not be able to be) adopted by humans.
• Some of the lesser precursor technology can be produced by powerful mages with fabrication labs, but not on a massive scale. Some of the Thracian levels of technology can be produced in larger quantities, but still nothing like a modern factory output.
• Wireless communication exists, but is not available to the common person.
• Technology is generally integrated and non-disposable. If something does not have a perpetual power supply, you probably have to physically take it to a recharging station. It own't have removable batteries.
• Plastic bags and so forth are unavailable. Textiles in generally are not synthetically produced.

Teleportation and Propulsion

There are three major forms of highly advanced travel, which are possessed of their own unique advantages and disadvantages.

• Teleportation is instantaneous, but very, very energy-intensive. It is impossible to move much mass by teleportation. You cannot send non-living matter unless it is being carried by a sophont. This does mean that the undead effectively cannot teleport.
  • Dynamic teleportation is directed by a sapient mind. The most common type is a spell of teleportation. This is generally somewhat inaccurate as to target, but you can choose the target at the time the spell is cast. You could, for example, choose a city to teleport to. You won't have much choice as to where in the city you appear. Finer control than that is difficult or impossible.
  • Static Teleportation requires a gate at each end. Each pair of gates is linked; you cannot change the destination of a gate once it is built, and they must be built as a pair. If one gate is destroyed, its partner-gate is rendered useless. A typical loadout for a gate is 8 roughly human-sized sophonts, none of whom can carry more than 5 stone. Their range is limited, and they can't teleport someone further than, say, from the planetary surface to one of the moons.
  • The Cidrian Gates are a specialized type of Static Teleporter. They are huge, comparable in size and mass to a modern-day Main Battle Tank. They can only activate approximately once every 24 hours. They send their targets to their opposite gate (an activation drains the capacity of both gates, so you can't pop forward and back in less than 24 hours.) These are used to send riders to other planets, or possibly other planes. It is an extraordinarily bad idea to activate a Cidrian gate if there is any other Cidrian gate within fifty miles (measured in a sphere that ignores all material obstruction.) For this reason, the known ones are scattered about the world, and are rarely moved. You never know if another one you don't know about might be in the way.
• Inertia, Mass, and Gravity Manipulation (IMG) is probably the most common form of non-mechanical technologically advanced travel available. The upside is that it is very cheap in terms of energy required. The downside is that it tends not to be very quick in comparison, and doesn't necessarily work as well in the lower parts of gravity wells.
  • Out in very low-g space, you can use Inertia and Mass manipulation to move VERY FAST, by cranking your mass down to nothing and adding a relatively small amount of inertia. Some extraterrestrial demons, and most in-system craft, use this to travel from planet to planet. You can't break the light barrier or make much of a ramming attack, but you can travel an AU in a reasonable amount of time.
  • Deep in planetary or lunar gravity wells, Gravity Manipulation lets you "flip" the orientation of something's weight. Essentially, Gravity Manipulation only allows various forms of Levitation. It won't let you move perpendicular to the direction of gravity. Usually, a spacecraft or demon will levitate from the planetary surface out into space, and then use Inertia and Mass manipulation to travel to their destination, where they levitate down to it.
  • Most forms of IMG are not very maneuverable.
• Faster Than Light travel. FTL propulsion cannot currently be replicated by any terrestrial civilization. Knowledge about it is typically lore that has been handed down. It takes massive amounts of power, and more importantly is HUGE. It is impossible to make miniaturized FTL drives, even to move very small ships. The minimum sizes of FTL craft start at several times the size of the Empire State Building or Sears Tower, and go up from there. Assume half of the volume of the ship is taken up by power generation and the FTL and IMG drives (the latter used for in-system travel in some ships.) Even then, typical maximum velocities are only a few times light speed. They cannot make landfall and expect to ever be in a condition to take off again, and so generally carry very large cargo vessels. The human colonists or precursor races probably game to this system using FTL craft, and seeded the planets with the Cidrian Gates.
  • There is known to be one FTL craft still in the solar system, which is an active deity. There may be others, but probably not more than a few.

Precursor Technology

• Precursor Technology, at least those examples that have survived, is defined by Apple logic taken to an extreme. It just works.
  • No visible power sources are used. If the internal power source can only activate it so many times, there may be indicator lights that wink off as charge is used, and wink on when the stores are recharged. All existing precursor tech is self-recharging.
  • No user-serviceable parts. All casings are completely seamless. Often, there are almost no moving parts at all. They are not intended to be opened up or tinkered with or repaired at all.
  • They have no labels or other helpful tips on the outside.
  • They usually only have one function.
  • Precursor technology was built to last. The casings are almost absurdly durable - even if they can be damaged by intentional abuse or attack, they will never naturally degrade. There are items of Precursor technology that is reliably known to have been functioning for over ten thousand years with no interruptions in performance.
  • The Cidrian Gates, for example, work as such: There is a large platform, with eight glowing circles about a yard across. One of them is next to a podium with a handprint on it. It looks like a handprint scanner in a science fiction film. If a sophont places their hand on the scanner, a point of glowing light will start describing a circle around their hand. It takes ten seconds to make a full circle. At that point, anyone standing on one of the circles (but only eight people at maximum) is teleported to the matching circle in its partner gate. All the circles turn dark until the gate recharges, 24 hours later.
  • Energy weapons are usually a simple rod with a nodule that acts as a firing stud. If the user touches their finger to the stud, a line of lights on the side of the rod will illuminate, a number of lights equal to the shots remaining. If the user presses their finger against the stud with moderate pressure, the weapon fires a charge.

Lizardman Artifacts

• The ancient Lizardman civilization built weird crystalline technology that was psionically activated. It typically is powered by the psychic energy of the user(s.) These items usually range from the size of a football (Lizardman claws didn't make tiny things like iPods suitable) to the size of a building (A crystalline spire core running up through one of their ziggurats was a common feature.)
  • Reported uses include telepathic communication, recording of historical events, weather manipulation, generation of force fields, healing, and others.
  • The modern race of lizardmen have much less psychic potential than their ancestors for reasons which are not well-understood. As such, they are usually not more able to use their technology than humans are. That is, they're really bad at it and normally can't make it work. Sometimes they do preserve and treasure those artifacts, though, out of a sense of dull and inchoate reverence.

Products of Amaranthan Sorcery

• The Amaranthans empire was great and terrible. They had access at their height to advanced technology and magic, but much preferred the latter.
  • Summoned and bound spirits were favored. Magical swords often include a bound intelligence, some other items might also.
  • They were not much for either baroque designs, or oversimplified ones. A magical sword, for instance, will be the swordiest fucking sword you ever saw. No gems on the hilt, no silly crap like fancy hilts. The style is very recognizable, but the more abstruse magical items can be hard to determine the function of.
  • Additionally, they didn't favor gold or jewels. Those things simply weren't perceived as valuable next to raw power. If you could kill a dragon, you don't need to wear a gold necklace to show off. The magical sword WAS the display of 'wealth.'
  • The Amaranthans were not nice people. Their artifacts can be dangerous, sinister, or just creepy.

Thracian Technology

• The Thracians were powerful and ruthless. They had access at their height to advanced technology and magic, but much preferred the former.
  • They were a very warlike people by the necessity of their circumstances. They produced militaristic weapons and vehicles, and massive production facilities.
  • They were also much concerned with their interactions with outsiders. They liked concealable weapons, defensive systems, communications gear, etc.
  • Contrarily, they also were much concerned with displaying their wealth and power. They cared about how IMPRESSIVE an item was, aside from its power or utility.
  • They did not make as much use of perpetual energy generators as the Precursors, but they could make them when they wanted to.

Comparisons

Examples, for contrast:

• If the Precursors built a sword, it would be like Apple built a lightsaber. If the Lizardmen built a sword, it would be a heavy-bladed crystalline cleaver that the user could swing as though it weighed five pounds, but hit as though it weighed a hundred pounds. If the Thracians built a sword, it would be an ornate basket-hilted cutlass, include glowing jewels, and a selector switch allowing it to electrify or freeze things. If the Amaranthans built a sword, it would be Stormbringer.
• If the Precursors built a personal vehicle, it would be a hoverboard, or a flying saucer with a startlingly simple control scheme. The Lizardmen never seemed to have much interest in travel. If the Thracians built a vehicle, it might be a flying galleon or a monowheel vehicle (see what the protagonist rides in the recent Lorax film. Make it fancier-looking.) If the Amaranthans built a vehicle, it would be a Nightmare bound into a heavy silver ring, so that it appeared and obeyed the commands of the user when they snapped their fingers.
• If the Precursors built an information system, it would be a Turing Complete AI with a soothing voice, contained in a pleasingly rounded cube one foot on a side. It would project interactive holograms without any visible means of emission. The Lizardmen would create a crystalline throne that allowed you to dream the memories of those who had sat in it before you. The Amaranthans would bind the souls of dozens of Savant-slaves into an iron-bound tome. Their thoughts would appear across the pages when questioned. The Thracians would build a clunking, roughly sapient robot or golem.
• The Precursors sent Habitation Seeds along with the first colonists. This is a twenty or thirty pound sphere that you bury in the earth. It "grows" a house over a period of time, adapting the basic model to local climactic conditions. They are able to supply their own internal power and running water in almost all circumstances, and tend to closely resemble a Loftcube design. The Lizardmen mostly lived in muddy rivers and swamps, and cared little for houselike structures. They sometimes moved into half-submerged tunnels in their ziggurats if circumstances dictated it. The Thracians were extremely flexible about structures, although they did have a preference for white stone and tall pillars. The Amaranthans enjoyed living in structures like enormous gothic cathedrals, with self-aggrandizing stained glassteel windows.
• The Precursors are not known to have left behind much in the way of communication technology. The Lizardmen would send telepathic messages to each other, but also tended not to show much interest in matters more than a hundred miles or so away. The Thracians used all types of wireless technology, and are even rumored to have used communication satellites. The Amaranthans enjoyed using spirits to carry messages, or appearing in each other's mirrors, fireplaces, or dreams. They felt that an appropriately dramatic method of communication would underscore the importance of the message and the person sending it.